Another UK company to set up base in Ahmedabad

Asite Solutions Plc, a British software company, has decided to set up its first shop in India at Ahmedabad.

Two other UK-based companies have already opened their setups in the city, including notebook computer manufacturer Allied Computers International Ltd.

Asite, which is listed with the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London, will start India operations this week. The company plans to recruit 100 software personnel in the first phase. A source close to the development said Asite would target the enterprise, project management, sourcing, trading and access solutions market.

The company is also expected to provide support services to clients.

"It may also make Ahmedabad its regional hub "as the company has been looking at opportunities in the entire south-East Asia," the source close to Asite told Business Standard on Wednesday.

The company is mainly promoted by John Egan, chairman of Asite (and a former chief executive officer (CEO) of BAA Plc), and Tom Dengenis, group chief executive.

Before the company finalised its decision on entering into India, in February Asite entered into an alliance with AEC/communications, the German company that provides technology to large international construction industry portals.

AEC/communications is the collaboration software provider with market-leading construction portals in Australia, Switzerland and Germany.

"By achieving interoperability with Asite, customers using AEC's software can exchange data seamlessly with customers using Asite's applications and vice versa. This means project teams and supply chains that work across international boundaries can do so more easily and more efficiently, without the need to change their businesses' systems of choice and Asite wants leverage its such strategic tie-ups during its operations in India also," said the source.

With the help of this alliance, Asite has started now accessing to customers in Germany, Switzerland and Australia for its supply chain software, including many of the largest contractors in those markets. In June, this year, Asite secured AEC's exclusive distributorship for UK and Ireland for the latter's 'think!' project.

The project, which is branded in the UK under 'Asite Enterprise Workflow', would enable customers with internal project teams within their organisation to collaborate, no matter where they are based, whilst retaining enterprise wide documentation on the organisation's own in-house servers.

It may be added here that only during first week of this month, ACI announced that it would come up with its global manufacturing plant for notebooks/laptops at Infocity in Gandhinagar while Quality BPO, another UK-based BPO company also has started its Indian operations from Infocity in Gandhinagar.

"With the commencement of the direct flight services between Ahmedabad and London, more and more UK-based software and hardware companies are showing interest in setting up operations in Gujarat. By next month, we will getting two more British companies to start operating from Infocity which includes an instrumentation company and a BPO company," said Anupam Saxena, general manager of Creative Infocity Inc, promoter of Infocity, the software park which is located near Gandhinagar.

Industry sources said that at least four more UK-based software companies have already approached Government of Gujarat seeking clearance for setting up their operations in Ahmedabad while with the entry! Of Asite Solutions, seems that Gujarat may come out from the long shadows of getting lesser foreign investment since last two years.